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by 
DOUGLAS GREENWOOD 



SONNETS OF THE DAY 

BY 

DOUGLAS GREENWOOD 









DEDICATION 



"A ciascun alma presa e ge^til core." 

— Dante. 
Translation : 

"To every captive soul and gentle heart. 

Copyright 1919 
G. Douglas Greenwood 



©CI.A525909 

JUN !8i9IS 



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In the Open Tower 

Dreaming she lies, yet wakes to some sweet thing, 
Drawn beyond sleep, and on a sunnier tide 
Than glimmering night reveals. Her lips divide 
As if some eager joy that loves to cling 
Had kissed them so. The calm air's murmuring 
Is music in her thought beneath the wide 
Blue heaven's deep height. She is the very bride 
And goddess of love's lonely tarrying. 

Self-singing songs which the heart listening hears 
And loses in effacing joy, have never 
Told all the thought in which she meets her lover; 
For this is she for whom all songs forever 
Kindle new fire, and the mute hours discover 
Pulsations of innumerable years. 



i> 



O never yet, for any home of youth, 

Have I so wearied in my wanderings. 

As for a vague and drifting house, which stands 

Among the fairy clouds of dream and truth, 

Builded on winds that drift above the sands, 

Haunted by sound of doves, by glimmering wings 

Lightly overshadowed, little known to praise. 

Or planned for building. Still it waits my hands. 

Though it be builded high, yet I will raise 

An Earth beneath it; and if it should hold. 

Imprisoned as in latency, a being 

Lovelier than thought, will set a crown of days, 

Golden with dawn there to the end, all freeing 

Joy to itself, so found as from of old. 



Weird Weather 

I would have music ; at this hour would hear 

Music and singing. For the hour has no mate, 

And the deep air is blue and passionate, 

And nowhere has the day, yet everywhere, 

A heart and soul, which is but ours, and here 

Resumes for us the interrupted state 

Of a whole World's vast paradise, elate 

With terrible splendors, on a broken stair 

Twixt Heaven and Earth. . . . In some forgotten time. 

Or in deep dreams that come in April weather, 

We wandered on such hills as these together. 

And drank, in sleep, the poison of such flowers 

As grow just here; and felt such pausing hours 

Enfold the solemn splendor of this clime. 



Death 

In the still hour of dawn came close to me 
Death upon wings of easy motion flying, 
Death, like a presence and a mystery 
Growing to strange new visibility; 
And smiled amid his radiance, and said: 
^'Desire me not too much, though love seem dead, 
And you may know me gentle to the dying/' 

"You are the lord of broken hearts," I said, 

'Of fading flower, spent river, fallen head. 

And dying day. In our divided lot 

We share one calm, one hope, one knowledge, never 

Changing our will.'' 

Then said he: "Seek me not. 
I, the revealer of new life and thought. 
Will come as the reward of your endeavor." 



Cite d'Orphee 



Each hour, by thought and word, and deed, we give 

Power to the best or worst. We cannot cease 

To build and fashion, while Time's moments live 

And space is wide, dungeons or palaces. 

The past is rich in ruin of such ; and they, 

The sceptre-bearers in the realm of song. 

Who to Apollo's deity belong, 

Have built imperishably. A splendor glows 

In the far future, where, from hills of dawn, 

Issues a river. There the orphic sound 

Of a wise singing raises visibly 

The fabric of a vision fair to see. 

And kindles fire of flowers upon a lawn 

Which for mere happiness is holy ground. 



By the Shore — Nocturne 

Through leagues of darkness, like an emptied bowl, 

Which held white fire, the new moon leans a rim 

Of silver light. Flowers close, as hues grow dim 

To closing eyes. Quiet unites the whole. 

A while since, on a western oriole. 

Flamed the low Sun; and a nun's evening hymn 

Summoned the faces of the cherubim. 

Till night received the hush of that mute soul ; 

And still, in dream, the faces shone. . . . But I 

Have not that quiet. Sounds recede, and die. 

Receding further; night is conscious, close 

About its hidden things in their repose; 

But I seek love, framed as in far-away 

Intense eternal ever-springing day. 



S 



Aftermath 

The garden of the past was desolate, 
Its flowers all withered, and its sunshine low 
Wan as late moonlight upon twilight snow. 
From interdiction and the storm of Fate 
Ruin remained ; and though all winds abate 
There is no peace after such rage. 

But now 
Is come decay of ruin ; and bright winds blow 
Over the mellowing crumbled house. The gate 
Lies amid flowers; dawn richens; thrushes mate; 
The wind-stirred grass is tall and ripe to mow. 

At sunset twittering swallows wheel and soar 
Round the grey tower high up in evening air. 
The twilight has a dawn of hope, a stair 
Leading through delicate cloud, an airy shore 
With a good haven, where my thoughts behold 
Sweet singing sorrows, clad in cloth of gold. 



To the Majority 

/. The Home Truth 

If Nature will not yield the boon she bears, 
If the Earth groans with misery and grieves; 
If Christ is crucified between two thieves 
On each of all the days of all the years; 
If strange confusions multiply, and fears 
Confound in darkness all that man achieves; 
If man knows not the pattern that he weaves, 
And kens not well the harbor that he nears; 
If childhood is a thing of little worth. 
And manhood bought and sold and cast aside; 
If woman is the plaything or the bride 
Of such a wretched wastrel of the Earth, 
Whose fault — by whose permission and decree 
But yours and yours who will not to be free? 



10 



To the Majority 

II, Confession 

The crime of crimes is ours that we have given 

Connivance — lawyers, priests and lowly men — 

To ours and others grief under all Heaven, 

Over all Earth. What help is for us then? 

We have slain the best; and those who might have been 

Gentle, have we made captive before birth 

Through anguished mothers; — through vile slums obscene 

And mart and factory we have grieved the Earth. 

By our connivance have we lured to crime 

The weak; and punished them in cruel fear 

And greed and ignorance, we who might have taught — 

Would we have learned it — all the joy of time. — 

O we, ''the People," who are censured here, 

Is all our sloth and wickedness as naught? 

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A Message of May 

I. Freedom 

You know what freedom is ? It is to be 
Ushered in welcome from the shadowy land 
Of the unborn; first, among children, free, 
To learn the living present ; understand 
The past, and glimpse the future so, and bear, 
Free among men, the burden of life and love, 
Strengthened for labor, glad for pleasure, dear 
To those who honor the Earth and skies above. 

It is to be what Freedom's self can make 

Only a few till all alike are free. 

For us it means to be as lulled awake 

In that wise future — knowing what men shall be 

When one man wills, another to be free — 

And therefore glad to suffer for their sake. 

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A Message of May 

//. Confidence 

There shall not come redemption out of chains 
Till you and I have conquered the vague power 
Which is their slave who bind us, bred of pains 
Dreaded and suffered long ; and in this hour 
Felt near us like the insolence of shame. 
It is not fear, yet like the shadow of fear, 
Whispers discouragement — its better name 
Doubt: let it vanish now the dawn is near. 

Have we not speech and patience? Is there not 
Cohesion in the life of living things? 
The Sun and Moon are partners in our lot; 
Swiftness and slowness both; Nature has wings 
To hasten purposes ; and power she brings 
Is strong to serve an overruling thought. 

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A Message of May 

III. Rumor of Pan 

O comrades of the dawn, co-workers good, 
Whose blood was spilt far down into the night 
On journeying winds, O Human Brotherhood 
Whose heart and mind has sensed a fair delight 
Beneath all sorrow — when deep organs blow 
Musical thunder, and bright dancing comes 
Through shadowed air, or when huge clouds and slow 
Unstore their lightning, and the first rain drums, 
Quick-pattering — feel as now the hush and stir 
And preparation of things that pause, and wait 
Completion of an effort long put forth. 
There may be tumult ere the winds abate; 
There is confusion over south and north ; 
But nature is restored — be glad with her. 



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A Message of May 

IV, Ideality 

It was not for a vain and foolish whim 

That Liberty was named a woman — she, 

Nature divine, is gentle mother of him. 

And sweeter than the face of man may be, 

Her face. And though strange gods have lured, and vile 

Worms of the mire, and tenfold blasphemies 

Have been his idols, and confused awhile 

Our song — yet there shall come of cleansing seas 

To shining shores this beautiful-footed one. 

Beloved more than Aphrodite, and set. 

Against all darkness lucent as the Sun, 

Within whose light, as hers, are all things met, 

As in one life which knows not to forget, 

But is the Universe, and is alone. 

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A Message of May 

V, Realization 

O listen ! you to whom strange life were sweet. 
The land shall grow so fair that it shall seem 
That light of heaven is gold before our feet 
Over red earth. The happiness of dream, 
And things remote, shall come to dwell with us ; 
The great desire of bleeding hearts shall come, 
(Music more sweet than of the angelus) 
And make amid our folded hills a home. 

Things perfected in thought and dream shall be 
Gardened and builded so that one may guess. 
Approaching, from one city's loveliness. 
The whole land's beauty, and how sweet love is, 
How calm old age there — as if Earth, made free. 
Glided in sunshine of a sea of bliss. 

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Kings 

Whom shall we honor, now the shadows flee, 
And darkness, like a wind, gathers away 
The kings, whom all their delegated sway- 
Fast follows? With what crown of majesty 
Would they be crowned who know to set men free? 
Shall we not better bring, with them, the day. 
Remembering night; and seek within, as they, 
The increasing and slow dawn, as once did he 
For whom the temple veil was rent, whose lips 
Were sealed as in the darkness of eclipse; 
Who feared no hell ; and wore on Earth no crown 
Save one of thorns; whom the World sees and hears 

Dimly as men in dream see tower and town 

And may not love, confused with many fears.^ 



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Multitudes 

I cannot lose the pitiful faces, going 
In throngs or singly by. I will bid spare, 
For pity of these even those who strip them bare. 
In time of storm I, utterly well knowing 
Folly of vengeance, will be strong in showing 
Kindness to them; and will have special care 
Of those they love. I will not give despair 
Victim for victim When the light is growing. 

The shut heart which contains the hard thing greed; 
The mind which closes eyes and ears, and toils 
Most in that service, these are known to me, 
Loathsome; yet even such would I set free. 
It is enough that they should lose the spoils; 
It is enough that all have help at need. 



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The Time of Trouble 

They pass forever, going whence they came, 
The lords of night. They pass, to be of those 
Who but remember the unnumbered woes 
Whose fruit they leave, that and their fall, the same 
Sorrow in double shape, two griefs. Their name, 
Louder than Liberty's, till she uprose, 
Triumphant after countless overthrows, 
Is darkened in the splendor of her fame. 

The greed that led them, and the slaves who follow, 

See one another now. The hills are loud 

In the grey dawn, with testing of things hollow. 

The old reliable fraud had witnesses. 

And a new storm prepares, a gathering cloud 

Wakens low thunders in the mute abyss. 



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To a Certain Respectable Man 

You love life well. — Why, live then ! Grope, and twine 

Around your mean desires ; and prize each well 

Of all the things you grasp; and feed the swine, 

Fat in your heart. There is no deeper hell 

Than these things lost — when you have failed to win 

One lasting joy. And when you die you'll meet 

God — ^and the devil — both yourself, your sin 

And its accuser, face to face. And then 

I think you'll front your victims in the street, 

Whom your sloth would not aid, your narrow scorn 

Of careful thought refused to understand. 

And you will wish that you had not been born, 

And hate your greed, and see upon your hand 

The blood of those you called your fellow men. 



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a certain 'Uiergyman 

They have done this thing, you say, and have no merit 
To win our mercy now. You are wild it seems. 
Out of the primal dark do you inherit 
A mind like this. Your glance fixates and gleams, 
Suddenly savage. You would make a pen 
Of a whole nation, where the weak must cry 
In helpless wretchedness. Those were not men ; 
These are one blood with the cruel monsters. Aye! 
But who is guiltless ? which the nation free 
From such attaint in death of those who die 
In the land's home, our own and not another's ? 
They — without words, with hands and feeble cry. 
While for themselves they beg, and for their mothers. 
Beg mercy for all dumb things constantly. 



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The Masters 

They never will forsake us, those who grew 

Great in their hearts forever. They retain 

The memory of our intermittent pain, 

And of their own Gethsemene's garden dew. 

They are not wrath with us, though we are few 

And slow in our response, not knowing the gain, 

The loss not knowing. . . . Far across the plain 

Rises the mountain. . . . And to strive anew; 

To emulate their service to the power 

Which lives within us like a still white flower; 

To unweave imagined spells, the barriers 

Between the inner and the outer heaven. 

And so give Truth the tribute that is hers; 

This is to conquer, this to be forgiven. 



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Easternight 



Lilies and lights about a crucifix 

At Easter; and a clear face beautiful 

That shines against the light, and seems to have 

Immanent radiance. A remote sweet chime 

Of bell notes from the clouds comes suddenly. . . 

Wave on wave a glory thrills and goes 

Through that still face, those mystic eyes and glad. 

Beautiful dreamer, could it make it less 

If you should know of your own loveliness ? 

These flowers, this joy, this music, this white peace 

Are with you, of you, show themselves in you, 

The sweetest song, the fairest flower of all, 

Madonna. 



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Afterword 

The foregoing sonnets, with the exception of "The Home Truth," 
"By the Shore,'' and "Easternight," were written within the month 
following April 12th, 1919; and "Cite d'Orphee," "Weird Weather," 
"The Time of Trouble," and "Multitudes" were written during the 
train journey from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Oteen, near Asheville, 
N. C, where the writer is doing duty as sergeant, M.D. 

The writer is a Canadian by birth; English, Irish, and Scots by 
descent; a traveller by occasional inclination, having circled the Globe. 
He hilds theosophical views. What his politico-economic, and social 
ideas are it is needless to say. 



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